Monday, November 29, 2010

Design in Society- Utopian Design

The Nintendo Wii is a video game system that defies conventional video game logic. It uses a controller like the other game consoles, but the controller relies on motion sensors to play the game. Nintendo knows that people are going to play video games and the company is excellent at making money from this. Until the invention of the Wii, video game players were sedentary. Video gamers were becoming synonymous with laziness and obesity. This was becoming a problem among young people in the US.

Granted, childhood obesity was not one of the biggest concerns for Nintendo when they were designing the Wii. Making money would probably be on top of the list. But burning calories was a definite plus. They are producing a variety of sports and fitness games, and even have a balance-board like controller called the Wii Fit.

By being innovative Nintendo was able to corner the market with motion based video games. Playstation and Xbox have both released motion based game controllers/ cameras, but they are roughly four years later than Nintendo. The PS3 and XBox360 output higher video resolutions than the Wii, but the Wii has seen the best sales of the three consoles. The innovative design of the Wii was not originally designed to be Utopian, but it ended up that way.